Here we've provided a glimpse into the minds, lives, and passions of Cussler collectors around the world.

Steve Tracy

Steve Tracy has a couple of web links about his adventures for us to enjoy. The first is about meeting Clive Cussler for the first time in St. Louis during the Trojan Odyssey signing tour. The second is about the 2005 Denver Cussler Con.

Road Trip To Clive Cussler Book Signing

Cussler Con 2005

Steve Tracy (#69)
steve.tracy@comcast.net
Hainesville, IL USA

________________________________________________________________________

James B. Fleenor

I would like to share the most prized part of my collection. ATLANTIS FOUND is my favorite Cussler novel. This was only my second CC book and I was hooked with my first read, Flood Tide. After reading these two works, I started seeing a pattern in the way Clive worked into his books real historical artifacts. As readers may remember, the Snow Cruiser was the vehicle used by Dirk Pitt to help save the world! I had never heard of Admiral Byrd's SNOW CRUISER before, but after reading about it, I wanted to investigate the validity of its existence, and what a better place than the internet! It was during this investigating that I happened upon the Clive Cussler Collector's Society, and the rest is history!

Pictured here is my autographed First Edition of Atlantis Found. You will also see two fun and rather inexpensive items that compliment the book. On the right is an October '39 Popular Mechanics that features the Snow Cruiser. The article shows a cut-away of the SC and you can almost picture Dirk & Al in action! The other item pictured is a "Postal Cover" of the Snow Cruiser reaching the South Pole. These were carried inside the Snow Cruiser on its voyage and were to be mailed when they arrived. This particular cover came with a signed note from the gentleman I obtained it from stating: "This envelope was taken from the Snow Cruiser while I was on the 1946-47 "Operation Highjump" expedition to the South Pole... When we got there in 1946, it was buried in ice and snow... We dug a deep tunnel from near our camp where I retrieved this envelope." I also had this autographed by Clive (I'm sure destroying all historical integrity, but HEY, it's MY collection!).

For anyone looking for either of these items, they are pretty readily available on eBay and should be able to be obtained for under or around $10.00 each. By the way, there is also a Popular Science (or Popular Mechanics) highlighting the S.S. United States, the ship featured in Flood Tide. I can research the month & year if anyone would be interested.

Thank you,

Jim Fleenor (#56)
Maplestr5@ameritech.net
Mentor, Ohio

________________________________________________________________________

Ellsworth Boyd

Ellsworth visits Clive at his home in Golden, Colorado. Summer of 1994.

Ellsworth Boyd, Professor Emeritus, College of Education, Towson University, Towson, Maryland, pursues an avocation of diving and writing. He has published articles and photo's in every major dive magazine in the US., Canada, and half a dozen foreign countries. An authority on shipwrecks, Ellsworth has received thousands of letters and e-mails from divers throughout the world who respond to his Wreck Facts column in Sport Diver Magazine. When he's not writing, or diving, Ellsworth appears as a featured speaker at maritime symposiums in Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, Ft. Lauderdale, New York and Philadelphia. "Romance & Mystery: Sunken Treasures of the Lost Galleons," is one of his most popular talks.

His favorite authors, besides, Clive, are Ernest Hemingway and Truman Capote, and Wayne Valero. He considers Wayne's Collector's Guide to Clive Cussler an outstanding piece of work and is eager to read Wayne's next book. Ellsworth's first Cussler book was Raise the Titanic. Ellsworth met Clive when Clive called him in the early 1980s, asking about a shipwreck. They have kept in touch ever since. Ellsworth visited Clive on two occasions when he was in Golden Colorado.

Ellsworth's favorite Clive memento is a bottle of Landy Cognac with a blown glass replica of the H. L. Hunley in it. It was one of 24 that Clive had made by Landy, in the Grade Champagne district of Paris, for 24 of his crew and discoverers and researchers of the Hunley. It comes in a decorative red box inscribed, "The Original Landy Collection." Packed in yellow satin, the bottle rests on a mahogany base with a gold colored metal plate affixed and inscribed, "H. L. Hunley." The Landy classic has a certificate of authenticity attached declaring: "This decanter is an authentic Landy piece, part of a limited handcrafted edition, premium cognac from the vineyards of Grande Champagne. Ellsworth wrote an article about the Landy cognac bottle for Dive Magazine. He has also written about Clive in Underwater USA and in Sport Diver Magazine. His last piece, in Sport Diver Magazine, was about Clive's discovery of the Mary Celeste and a review of Clive's Seahunters II.

From the Editor: Over very own CCCS member Ellsworth Boyd is portrayed as a character in Clive Cussler's latest best seller, "Trojan Odyssey." Boyd is shown as an expert in ancient artifacts and professor from Trinity University (Dublin). He flies to Washington to help Dirk Pitt and National Underwater Marine Agency (NUMA) officials determine the origin of some strange artifacts found in the Caribbean. Ellsworth holds the NUMA team "spellbound" on pages 306-311.

   cusslersociety@xpressdata.net